Junior Cutting

The crowd at the 2010 AQHA World Championship Show yelled enthusiastically as Laney Rey Too performed November 17 during the junior cutting finals.

Then the crowd yelled just as loudly for the athleticism of Third Cutting. Scores are not disclosed during the finals at the World Show so the first indication – other than crowd noise – that the two were tied for the world championship was when announcers Glen Gabel and Zeb Bell called the two horses and their riders back to the pen for a workoff of their 221 tied score.

Right away, Laney Rey Too’s trainer, Guy Woods of Pilot Point, Texas, knew that he had an advantage.

“That workoff was really set up for her,” Guy said. “She gets better and better and better. This year, I just went to weekend shows, one after another, and showed her two-three times a day, and that’s why I knew she would get better, because I’ve shown her three times in one day, and the third ride is just fantastic.”

Guy tiptoed “Piglet” back into the herd and pulled out another hard run, scoring a 223.

“(She’s) pretty creepy-crawly and very, very physical,” Guy said. “This is the fastest horse I’ve ever rode. As far as a cutting horse? She can move faster than anyone I’ve ever been on.”

When Boyd Rice rode Third Cutting into the herd, his hard-stopping brilliance appeared on course to score similarly, but one slip let a cow past. Rather than continue to work the 2005 stallion, Boyd took the zero and the reserve world championship for owners Carl and Shawnea Smith of Jacksboro, Texas.

EE Ranches of Whitesboro, Texas, bred and raised Piglet, who got her name because she was orphaned at an early age. The 2005 sorrel mare by Dual Rey and out of Laney Doc by Doc Quixote “has a bit of a personality,” Guy told the Journal after his win as the mare poked at his shoulder with her nose. “She can be pretty hard to get along with.”

Piglet is the last foal of Laney Doc, the 1982 sorrel mare with more than $221,300 in National Cutting Horse Association earnings. Piglet was started on the ranch.

“She was an NCHA Futurity finalist, and I won second in Augusta on her,” Guy said. “And then she had an injury to her hind leg and she was out of action for a year. We brought her back this year and have been showing her. We just really got back together.”

The time off made the mare more consistent, he said, and she has more than $111,190 in NCHA earnings.

“She’s always had that talent from the very first time I rode her,” he said, making her quirky personality worth the trouble. “She is a handful. I take her out and hand-graze her all the time, and she likes to eat, but she’s also tough to get along with sometimes, as you can see here. I just put up with it. We just live together.”

EE Ranches and Guy will show the mare in aged events through her 6-year-old year before putting her to work as a broodmare.